Auschwitz novelist stirs French guilt

The Sunday Times (UK) ^ | February 26, 2006 | Matthew Campbell, Paris

[Hannah Senesh]

HE HAD been told that the bulging envelope might contain a wartime diary. As he began to read, however, Oliver Rubinstein grew increasingly excited. This was what every publisher dreamed of: a great story with global appeal.

“It is the sort of thing that only ever happens once in a publisher’s life,” said Rubinstein last week, describing the text written in German-occupied France by a Jewish novelist shortly before she was sent to her death at Auschwitz in 1942.

* Irène Némirovsky’s manuscript, written in tiny letters to save paper during wartime shortages, had been kept in a battered old suitcase for six decades before being transcribed by her daughter and posted to Rubinstein’s office in 2004. This week it will be published in Britain and if the book’s success elsewhere is anything to go by it is certain to be the toast of publisher Chatto & Windus.

Suite Française, which evokes the heroism, brutality and cowardice of a country under occupation, has been translated into 30 languages and is about to be reissued in paperback in France, where it has sold more than 350,000 copies and won a prestigious literary prize.

It has also fed a national mood of introspection, contributing to a debate on the darkest chapters of French history and focusing on what one reviewer described as the billion-euro question about collaboration with the Nazis. “Placed today in the same conditions as then,” wrote the critic, “would we be better, more united, less cowardly, less spontaneously collaborative? Nothing is less certain.”

Some have likened the book to a “French War and Peace” and others have evoked Anne Frank’s diary but critics are united in acclaiming it as one of the most important novels about the occupation. “What is extraordinary,” said Rubinstein, “is the fact that it was written as events were unfolding, in real time. That gives it great resonance today.”

So successful has it been that several other long-forgotten books from the 1930s by the author have been reprinted, turning the Ukrainian-born Némirovsky into a French literary celebrity. “Suite Française is, I am convinced, her masterpiece,” said Rubinstein, the book’s editor at the Denoël publishing house, “but we are rediscovering her entire oeuvre.”

Némirovsky was 16 when her parents fled the Russian revolution. She married a rich Russian exile, began writing novels and by 1929 was being hailed as a burgeoning talent. Her friends abandoned her, however, after the German invasion when Jews were forced to wear the yellow star of David.

She started work on an epic novel, Suite Française, which follows several prosperous and influential families fleeing advancing German troops, graphically evoking the chaotic exodus from Paris.

What makes the novel all the more poignant is Némirovsky’s even-handedness — one of the Nazi officers is depicted as a true gentleman — in chronicling events that would end up making her a victim: after only a few weeks at Auschwitz, Némirovsky succumbed to typhus at the age of 39.

Just as remarkable is the story of the manuscript’s survival through the decades, including three years on the run from the Gestapo, several house moves and even a flood.

French radio presenters have been heard weeping into their microphones as they listen to Denise Epstein, the author’s 75-year-old daughter, describing her mother’s arrest in Issy- l’Evêque, the village in central France where the Némirovskys had sought refuge from the German advance on Paris.

“When they came for her there were no tears,” says Epstein. “It was a silent adieu. She asked me to look after papa. I am sure she knew she was leaving for ever.”

Epstein, then 13, was left clutching the suitcase containing photographs and papers that her mother had entrusted to her on the day of her arrest.

After her father was also marched away to Auschwitz, where he died in the gas chambers, Epstein and Elisabeth, her five-year-old sister, were cared for by a governess who shepherded them from one safe house to another until the end of the war. After the liberation they went in search of their parents. Only years later did they discover how their parents had died.

The suitcase was the sisters’ only link with the past but the manuscript in microscopic handwriting looked like a diary and the women could not bear the thought of reading their mother’s last words. “In 1975 I opened the manuscript,” said Epstein, “but I found it too painful to read and closed it again.”

A flood in her apartment some years later prompted Epstein to think about safeguarding the documents. Using a magnifying glass, she began to transcribe what she thought was a diary, only to discover that it was a novel.

Seeing the book published, she feels as though she has been relieved of a great weight. “I am sure my mother is happy. I understand now the point of my own survival,” Epstein said.

[Hannah Senesh]

The Jews of France: rounded up on French orders by French policemen and taken to a French detention camp before being sent on French trains to Auschwitz.

And when the Nazis made plain they didn't want the children, the senior French official wrote on the documents "Les enfants aussi!"("The children also!"). And the children were taken, including my grandfather's little cousin, Victor, who was murdered at the age of six in the gas chambers.

(As an aside, documents have come to light in recent years which show that the initiative to round up the Jews came not from the Nazis but the French national railroad company who were interested in the money they would make out of the venture)

[fieldmarshaldj]

Couldn't come at a better time.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We'll see if this is a wake up call.

[Joe Boucher]

Just one more thing for the french to be proud of.
SCUM.
Let's make money on the deaths of children.
But they were Jewish children.

[Rocketwolf68]

Most of them are gone now, but back in the 70's, our family reunions were polish holocaust survivor get-togethers where they showed their numbers and talked about family who never made it out. I am afraid we have forgotten how easily the world can be swayed into complacency or denial about genocide. If you go or have gone to auschwitz-birchenau and see the 450 acres of oven chimneys where they burned 8,000 per day, you can't deny that there is evil in the world.

[BlueSky194]

Yeah but how come no U.S fighter pilots bombed these railways.
I still dont get why they needed Roosevelt's or Eisenhower's approval.

[Popman]

Couldn't come at a better time.

I agree, but I believe the French will fail to connect the dots.

[Hannah Senesh]

"Most of them are gone now, but back in the 70's, our family reunions were polish holocaust survivor get-togethers"

250,000 Polish Jews managed to make it out to the Soviet Union before the gates were slammed shut. Of the remainder, over 3,000,000 Jews, 99% were subsequently murdered by the Nazis and their innumerable allies.

Before the war, 33% of Warsaw and Lodz had been Jewish. Indeed, over 70% of the doctors in Warsaw were Jewish in pre-war Warsaw.

(Over 300,000 Jews fought against the Nazis in the Polish armed forces. 10% of the victims at the Katyn massacre were Jewish)

[catpuppy]

Yeah but how come no U.S fighter pilots bombed these railways. I still dont get why they needed Roosevelt's or Eisenhower's approval.

In the first place "fighter pilots" fly fighters, not bombers. The damage from the few bombs that could be loaded on fighter aircraft of the day would not compensate for the loss of air cover and bomber escort missions that fighter aircraft provided.

But that is not my point. To insinuate that U.S. pilots--actively or passively-- somehow assisted the Nazis in efforts to commit genocide is just plain wrong.

[Hannah Senesh]

Drancy - the French-run detention camp for Jews

The camp of Drancy was a transit camp located not far from Paris. Like many other camps in France, it was created by the government of Philippe PÈtain and was under the control of the French police. In 1941, the first raids against Jews was ordered by the Nazis and conducted by the French police. The victims of these raids were transferred to Drancy. There is much evidence about the brutality of the French guards in Drancy. The conditions of life were extremely difficult, due to neglect of personal, ordinary human needs, adequate food, unsanitary conditions, and over-crowding.

Klaus Barbie, the notorious "Butcher of Lyon" was promoted from Holland to Dijon in the Occupied Zone of France, in June 1942, after having earned an "Iron Cross" decoration, for his success in killing Jews and shipping many to their deaths. Barbie's most impressive duty up to that time had been to execute Dutch Jews.

*On June 11, 1941, three hundred boys between 14 and 19 years of age are sent to Mauthausen in Austria where they will test the effectiveness of the gas chambers. There were no survivors. *Annette Kahn "Why My Father Died."

Proof exists that more than 3000 prisoners died in the French camps from lack of medical care or starvation. During the nights of July 16th and July 17th, 1942 an incident occurred now called "La Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv" (The Great Raid of the 'Vel d'Hiv') - The Velodrome d'Hiver was a stadium in Paris designed for bike races. (The French destroyed the stadium after the war). This police operation had been organized after several discussions between the government of Petain and the Nazi occupation administration. The code name of this operation was "Vent printanier" (Spring Wind) and all the arrests were made by the French police under the control of French police officials. Originally, only the Jews who were older than age 16 had to be arrested. It is under the proposal of the Prime Minister Laval that all the children were arrested.

More than 12800 (3031 men, 5802 women and 4051 children aged between 2 and 12) were transferred to the Velodrome d'Hiver. The children were kept there for 5 miserable days without any food or medical care and then they were transferred to Drancy, Beaune-la-Rolande or Pithiviers. The children were separated from their parents by the French police immediately after their arrival in Drancy. The parents were transported to Auschwitz and gassed. The children stayed sometimes weeks in Drancy, without any proper care or adequate food. Several babies and very young children died in Drancy due to the lack of care and the brutality of the French guards. Finally, they were all transported to Auschwitz and gassed upon their arrival. More than 6000 Jewish children from all the regions of France were arrested and transported to their deaths between July 17th and September 30th, 1942.

There were several other camps like Drancy in France: Noe, Gurs, Recebedou ...

During more than 40 years, the French Government refused to admit the responsibility of the regime of Petain and the French police in the deportation of the French Jews. In 1995, the president Chirac has finally admitted the responsibility of the Vichy regime during a speech in memory of the victims of the "Grande Rafle."

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Drancy.html

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking the keyword or topic Israel.

---------------------------

[bill1952]

As an aside, documents have come to light in recent years which show that the initiative to round up the Jews came not from the Nazis but the French national railroad company who were interested in the money they would make out of the venture)

They must be more recent documents. There is some documentation that goes back 60 years of the french round up of the Jews.

Where was Victor arrested?
I have maps of the seizures & deportations, as well as the birthplaces and ages of some of the Jewish children taken on the 20 -24 July, 1944 as well as on 31 July 1944.

1300 Jews were deported on those dates. - Upon reaching Auschwitz, 800 were gassed, which included all of the children.

Of the rest, 350 survived the last 10 months of the war.

And the french were every bit as guilty as any Nazi.
As far as the french making a buck, I see nothing different between them then, and the present when they were backing Saddam to the hilt, right to the very end, while full well knowing that he was paying the families of bombers who murdered Jews and who fired off missiles at Israel.

[Hannah Senesh]

"Yeah but how come no U.S fighter pilots bombed these railways."

When U.S. pilots found out after the war that they had actually flown over Auschwitz (they bombed installations nearby) and taken photographs of the place, they were beyond furious. One said that if only he had known he would have done something ("dipped his wings" etc.) to have let the people know they were not alone.

The son of a survivor once told me that the inmates used to call to the skies as the planes passed overhead that they should bomb the place. Better they died and others were saved, they reasoned. In any event, the plan put forward was to bomb the railroad tracks and not the camp itself. Failure to to do so, possibly (and I emphasize that word) meant that 500,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in 1944.

The whole world was silent. At Evian in 1930. At Bermuda in 1943. The BBC. Everywhere.

[Hannah Senesh]

"Where was Victor arrested?"

In Paris, while playing with other Jewish children. One boy escaped because he had blond hair.

[Hannah Senesh]

"At Evian in 1930"

A typo. That date, of course, should be 1938.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

Back in the 70's our family get togethers were the stories of Nazi Germany. My great uncle told the story of being on the train to the camps when the American military came and he was spared. They also told of the compassion and decency of the American military after the war. My aunt married an American GI.

We must stand against this 20th century fascism. Why the liberals, including Jewish Liberals in America, can't see this is beyond me.

[jalisco555]

Thank you for posting this.

[Hannah Senesh]

You're most welcome.

[jalisco555]

Yeah but how come no U.S fighter pilots bombed these railways.

You know, I don't think it would have mattered. Even if the camps had been bombed the Germans would have found other ways to murder the Jews under their control. Keep in mind that approx. 2 million of the 6 million were shot or died of starvation. The Germans would have switched to other methods of murder. Murdering Jews was the single most important war aim of the Third Reich.

[jalisco555]

The entire European side of my family, from Austria and eastern Poland, was annihilated in the Holocaust. Not one survived.

There would probably be 20 or 30 million Jews living in Europe now if this hadn't occured, all contributing to European prosperity and culture. Europe cut out it's own heart and now is paying the price.